Why dont 56k modems give 56kbps?

This is a discussion on Why dont 56k modems give 56kbps? within the A Brief History of Cprogramming.com forums, part of the Community Boards category; I might be asking something really,reall silly/elementry here but why 56k modems give only 5-6 kbps dl at max even ...

Why dont 56k modems give 56kbps?

I might be asking something really,reall silly/elementry here but why 56k modems give only 5-6 kbps dl at max even u dont have anythign else working other than the dl.
Why dont they give the full 56 kb per second speed?

I get a 52K every once in a while. Yesterday, i got a 1.2K lol (I promptly disconnected and dialed again). I think it has more to do with the capacity of the isp than your own phone line. I have about 3 different isp's i use and each gives different rates

Yeah, if you get a really slow speed (28k) and a lot of often disconnects then I reccomend checking your phone line. My phone line was really staticy so I checked it out, I found ou that the plug was all corroded, so I dipped it in some coke to disolve the corrosion and I was back up to 42k

The Cable/xDSL argument would tend to depend more upon price and availability. Digital Subscriber Lines run over standard copper phone cables, so with a DSL enabled exchange providers can offer broadband to a large area with reasonable implementation costs. Cable requires just that, a specific cable that may or may not be available in all area's. Cable can be more or less expensive than DSL, it can also be faster or slower depending on the particular type of DSL that is in use.

And AFAIK the representation in Kilobits per second is a progression from representation of transfer capability in Baud which happened in most places at the progression between 1200 baud modem's and 2400bps ones. It simply made sense at the time to represent data transfer in that way.

Depending on how your OS reads the speeds you may have to divide by 9 or 10 (instead of 8) to take into account the error checking.

56K modems also only upload at 36K. In Aust our lines are only rated to 36K. Guarranteed ~20K under the DDSO.

Here the teleco will 'pair gain' your line if you want two phone lines. That is they divide your existing line in half and sell it to you at twice the price. This of course divides your net speed roughly in half.

We won't mention their xDSL offering capped at 300Mb/month. (Au$0.18/Mb there after or Au$110/CD). My dialup account has 350Mb.

My house in a state capital, within ten Km of the CBD, is classified a 'remote area' for broadband access. Will not get cable or xDSL 'for a very long time' as I am on a RIM. Even MS has told them to lift their game. (why would MS care?)

Facemaster;
Optus cable is by far the best value in Aus. Highest customer satisfaction. Just not as widely available as xDSL.